Danone is to pioneer a color-coded food labeling system on all its fresh dairy products in Belgium. The French multinational food-products corporation is getting ahead of a government-backed voluntary scheme for food products which sees the Belgium health ministry encouraging better nutritional labeling. The Nutri-Score systems come at the time when consumers are paying much more attention to what they eat and is in line with Innova Markets Insights top trend for 2018 – “Mindful Choices” – the increasingly thoughtful consumer continues to catalyze changes in the way that companies produce, package and label their products.

Danone says it wants to help consumers take control of their health by making more informed and better healthier food choices by providing them with additional easy-to-read nutritional information about the food they consume.

Following the recent announcement made by the Federal Minister for Public Health on the introduction of a voluntary Nutri-Score labeling scheme for food products, Danone is rolling out the system on fresh dairy products on the Belgian market.

Danone will start the scheme at the end of this month and the Nutri-Score label will be displayed on all the products on the company’s website, www.danone.be.

Products on the Belgian market are scoring for 70 percent A and B in the Nutri-score scheme. As from January 2019, the Nutri-Score will gradually be added to all of its fresh dairy products sold in Belgian shops, the objective is to cover all packaging no later than the end of 2020.

Helping consumers make more informed and healthier food choices
Growing numbers of Belgian consumers are looking for healthy diet options and expect more transparency. Danone says it is committed to fostering healthier eating habits and wants to promote tools such as the NutriScore scheme to make it as easy as possible for consumers to make informed choices on fresh dairy products.

The French government signed a decree backing the voluntary adoption of Nutri-Score nutritional labeling last October.

“This intuitive and scientific labeling scheme, based on a code with five colors and letters, will allow consumers to make a better and above all faster nutritional assessment of the products that correspond to their healthy lifestyle,” says Wim Bauwens, Country Manager for Danone Belux.

“The system is already in use in France, and the Belgian government has indicated that it will be introduced on a voluntary basis in our country. Danone now chooses to endorse the Nutri-Score labeling scheme fully.”

“I strongly believe that the Nutri-Score scheme best meets the expectations of Belgian consumers, who are paying even more attention to what they eat and to their health.”

This commitment also illustrates how Danone is implementing its “One Planet. One Health” vision, which was launched globally last year. The company hopes that its initiative will encourage other players in the food sector to follow the movement and provide uniform and consistent information to consumers in Belgium and elsewher.